Thoughts on COUNTDOWN LIVE 2007-2008 Anniversary

[FuNsTyLe]

Originally Posted by Luther10

People really need to watch the complete concert from beginning to end before criticizing Ayu, and you'll see how much heart and effort she put into this.....

Some of you actually said you found the concert boring???, this is so unbelievable. I'm beyond words...

I'm 100% sure she put all her work and effort into it, and I actually listened to several songs, but they did not satisfy me, her vocals were bad. So even if I listened to the whole thing, I wouldn't feel different about it. Not just in this concert, but overall in the past 2 years. They were much better before (I've known her since 2002, so I'm no newbie) up untill 2005 or so, her lives awlways sounded awesome, always hitting the right notes and being in-tune, but I havent found alot of those performances lately. I don't really bother d/l her recent lives in TV shows etc, 'cause I know they aren't good anyway. This is just my opinion, and I can state whatever I want, if you all disagree then fine, but her vocal capacity has decreased alot lately. She needs a brake, a long one, 6 months maybe, cause she sounds strained and tired in lives. CDs and singles always sound perfect, because of all the editing.

Im not expecting her to have the same powerful voice she had in her Loveppears/ASFXX period, that's a long time ago... But you can really see how she recently makes her songs easier (i.e. fewer hard notes, less loud parts in her songs) to not strain her voice too much, but she can't even keep up with it in her live performances. I love Ayu, and I still love her music (recorded songs that is) But I just cannot find quality lives to match up with her lives from a few years ago. Her voice quality and range has really decreased alot lately. No wonder, she doesn't really take a rest either. But she really should.

[Cys86]

Originally Posted by Demure_Dusk

Well guess her vocals have changed. I don't mind it much since I like it and was never huge on the vocals thing. On the other points yeah I have the same feelings as you. Sometimes I don't like her stuff too. Like I prefer her "darker" material. Hell I wasn't that satisfied of her 2007 and I sure hope next year will be better.

I agree with you in 100 per cent

P.S. I also prefer the "darker" side of Ayu

[Bad Wolf]

Im not expecting her to have the same powerful voice she had in her Loveppears/ASFXX period

LOL, I'm sorry but the only thing I find powerful about her voice during the ASFXX period was that she could pierce eardrums--I think she got better for LOVEppears, at least, but it was still in need of minor tweaking.

[Kikaru]

^Her ASFXX voice was pretty awful. I think the only album where I haven't heard most of the songs was ASFXX.

She always performed this song pretty well in the past, so I'm not surprised that she performed this song well. My All was pretty shaky, but she sounded like she was choking up. Rainbow wasn't bad either.

From what I've heard so far, her voice was so-so. But I've never expected a lot from her CDL concerts, even at the very beginning.

And Huaka, you're my hero today.

[weix2]

hi there. i have been a fan since her Loveppears album and following are just some of my thoughts after reading some of the feedbacks in this topic.

there's nothing wrong saying that the performances were bad. come on, face it. those who have watched the concert should know that most of the songs were really not up to her usual standard as compared to the past (goodness, her dearest performances still give me goosebumps these days when i watch them again. other good ones are rainbow, evolution, hanabi etc)

i thought it was rude to say that people who criticize her shouldn't be welcomed here. now, it doesn't make AHS a gracious place to be at, isnt it? firstly, the feedbacks were not to the extreme of saying she sucks. it was more of stating the fact that she did went out of tune for most of her songs and that's why people claim that the performances were bad.

everybody has a different way of grading a performance; some are more into the emotional delivery and doesn't concern if she's in tune or not while others expect her to be in tune at least to consider an ok performance.

as for me, i see it in these 2 ways:
a singer has to definitely be in tune most if not all the times. they're called singers for obvious reasons. but we do know humans make mistakes so sometimes, we'll just let it go if there're some glitches here and there in the vocal.

a performer is somebody who performs for entertainment values and they can just be dancing and not singing to achieve that or just simply visually-pleasing with gestures, clothing/costumes etc

i see ayumi as both so that's when one should find a balance in between those above mentioned 2 points to define an acceptable or a good performance.

sad to say, i do prefer her previous performances or even song choices. nowadays, it's so hard to find those trademark songstyles in her current albums for eg boys and girls, voyage, evolution, surreal etc i'm not a big fan of her Guilty album for sure. My story would have been a better choice if i were to pick.

also, her recent live performances are really really bad, almost all are out of tune and that's one of my concerns as i strongly believe that a singer has to be in tune most of the times and apparently, she just fell flat. it's kinda of heartaching to see her not reaching the notes cos' it's not just me who's watching but many other fans, singers and professionals watching too. i'm sure there will be those who goes like, "so that's how ayumi sounds like in live." i thought it will be totally unfair to ayu if other people were to justify her as a singer/performer in that one song or concert. you get my point =/

i'm not fond of finding excuses of her bad performances. some said that is her ear problem and others said that while dancing, it's hard to sing etc it's really taking in a mutual stand sometimes, and watch the performance to get the real feedback. afterwhich, knowing that you will still support her and i still do.

after saying all these, i'm still a fan of hers. i still love her and enjoy watching the concert and performances so this is my say on this concert and her current situation. i'm looking forward to her Asian Tour DVD though... i think it will be good.

chill everybody. again, there's nothing wrong saying that her performances are bad now. unless somebody come and say things like she sucks or to insult her in anyway near/beyond that part, that's when we fans will stand out and defend for her.

[DestinyWishes]

Imagine if one day Ayu asked everyone to applaud for Peco and Princess and everyone booed instead... I mean I don't want it to happen, that would be too mean, but she does seriously need to think about getting new backing singers. I kind of thing that Ayu's vocals are worse because of the hard time she's going through.

[Kikaru]

Together When... sounded so much better without them. Maybe this is why her older performances sound better...

[salutcben]

Originally Posted by Luther10

People really need to watch the complete concert from beginning to end before criticizing Ayu, and you'll see how much heart and effort she put into this.....

Some of you actually said you found the concert boring???, this is so unbelievable. I'm beyond words...

Actually, i've seen the whole show, and i've bought most every of her live dvd, so i can compare objectively, i found this one boring, that's right. Why did she put 2 substages if she wasn't planning to use them more than one time each. The money that it costs could have been spent on some little decorations and lighting effects like the last 2 years at least. This show could easily be performed in ltlle spaces like Zepp's, and more it will surely be more interesting with the audience nearer.

One more thing, i agree with the fact that she seems happy ans smily, but if i want a SINGER to just keep smiling, i can watch some random Momusu concerts, and to be honest, some concerts from them or Maki Goto, are less off notes than this one. I'm waiting from a singer to SING correctly most of the times, not sometimes.

Last summer we saw some footage of the a-nation from Ayu on the tv shows, and it was the same thing, off notes a lot, and guess what, on the TV version that has been shown later, with the editing, nothing there, almost perfect. Everyone is saying that it's the tv channels fault, but why is it only hearable from the Ayu perfs, and not other artists, or not as much as her??

Now i don't believe those lies anymore, she has really lost her beautiful voice live, and she need some hard work. Ayu, please stop thinking about your high price fashion clothes and shoes, about your haircut, or anything else but your voice.

[Not~Yet]

I'm confused. Why does it feel like every thread at AHS no matter what's the topic ends up into a thread bashing Ayu or other AHS members opinions. Of course, if her vocals suck or her dress is awful or if there's something wrong you can say that since if that's your opinion, but why to start complaining how "I don't like her nowadays. She's so annoying diva." or "I just hate you all stupid fans who call her pretty!! X/ Drives me crazy."? if you don't like her or the people here you could just leave this forum. (well I could do that now when I'm complainin but I'm starting to get used to sticking here)

I haven't watched CDL yet because my computer is so goddamn slow with downloading but I hope the perfomance & singing is good.
salutcben I agree with you, she should get rest and voice training. I still think her vocals are overall great but lately she's been slippin out of control with her voice at lives. If needed I personally think she could let herself take a break, in example right after the 10th Anniversary stuff is pretty much over.

[CHE.R.RY]

Well I finally got to watch the tour last night and I have to say that in terms of vocals...this was Ayu's worst tour. I mean she was off-key in almost every song. She did ok on the ballads for the most part but there were still noticeable off-key parts. It was fun to watch however and the tracklist was really good. Ayu's outfits were the best I've seen for tours, since some of her older outfits she would wear were a bit superfluous <.<....Well all in all, it was a fun tour...but I felt sorry for Ayu. She's just not the same anymore. I still love my Ayu though and always will even if her vocals go down the drain =(

[CHE.R.RY]

Originally Posted by kyuutii_hanii

I'm confused. Why does it feel like every thread at AHS no matter what's the topic ends up into a thread bashing Ayu or other AHS members opinions. Of course, if her vocals suck or her dress is awful or if there's something wrong you can say that since if that's your opinion, but why to start complaining how "I don't like her nowadays. She's so annoying diva." or "I just hate you all stupid fans who call her pretty!! X/ Drives me crazy."? if you don't like her or the people here you could just leave this forum. (well I could do that now when I'm complainin but I'm starting to get used to sticking here)

I haven't watched CDL yet because my computer is so goddamn slow with downloading but I hope the perfomance & singing is good.
salutcben I agree with you, she should get rest and voice training. I still think her vocals are overall great but lately she's been slippin out of control with her voice at lives. If needed I personally think she could let herself take a break, in example right after the 10th Anniversary stuff is pretty much over.

You make good points here
And so does weix2

[Kikaru]

one more thing, i agree with the fact that she seems happy ans smily, but if i want a SINGER to just keep smiling, i can watch some random Momusu concerts, and to be honest, some concerts from them or Maki Goto, are less off notes than this one. I'm waiting from a singer to SING correctly most of the times, not sometimes.

Performers smile as a general rule, unless it's during sad ballads but generally it's courtesy -- good polite thing to do.

[Huaka]

No, it's fine for other people to have their opinion about her performance but when they make ridiculous statements such as, "Ayu can't sing a live great no matter what, because everything she does that sounds good is edited up the wazoo," or "Ayu's performance sucked ****, no wonder she's losing her popularity. Her time is over." and even, "Ayu must have drunk detergents before this live." That's when you have to step in and say something because they're being completely unreasonable.

[hightea_xx]

i'm still watching it, but i wanted to stop watching at surreal. the vocals were pretty weak here... she couldn't seem to hit the low notes OR the high notes. definately not her best preformance of this song. HOWEVER everything up to that track has been GOOD, i'm actually very surprised. and so far we have passed without any hideous outfits! although i wasn't a fan of the fated/together when outfits (but i let it go since those are my two favorite songs at the moment), i loved everything she's been wearing up until then. THE SCHOOL OUTFITS = SO COOL. the dancer's outfits reminded me so much of nobuta wo produce, haha. But so far, so good in terms of visuals, vocals, and such.

[Kilyk]

I'd have to say this concert blew me away! Not for vocals but just for some reason it made me so happy in the sense that the "old Ayu" was back? I don't know what I'm saying it's really hard to kinda say. It's like the whole aura and ambience of the concert made it so special. It seemed like she was having so much fun!

Personally I believe the best vocals were in the songs "talkin' 2 myself", "STEP you", and "untitled ~for her~". I think the worst vocals def. were in "SURREAL", "glitter", and "evolution". This concert was very up & down with vocals but def. more up than down so it was very good!

I can't wait to see the Asia Tour 2007! :O

[ayumisrael]

Don't know what's up with most of the guys here, but except for some parts at some songs which she couldn't reach some notes, her vocals were awesome as this whole CDL, can't wait for the DVD. About lip-synces - the hell I didn't see or hear ayu lip-sync in that whole thing.
I was just enjoying the whole concert, and her vocals definitly weren't as awful as a lot of people said here, but not the best either.

[SunshineSlayer]

I just want to make another comment about the vocals. In this concert, other than in Surreal, the vocals weren't that bad. But of course this is compared to when I saw her live at A-Nation this year and thought her vocals were the worst I've heard from her live. So, she seems to be on an upswing vocal wise now, however it's still not great, even compared to just a little over a year ago. You can really hear the difference on Bold and Delicious - a song that she performed so powerfully vocal wise just 2 years ago, seemed to lose a lot of it's vocal power and clarity now. I said this earlier this year, but I think Ayu really needs to stop drinking, that will definitely worsen you vocal chords because it makes them dehydrated and we know from reports and what Ayu as said herself that she drinks quite a bit.

Originally Posted by truehappiness

You're sure about that? O_o;

Maybe they were simply heavily edited in the DVD versions? O_o

That's true. Really you can't make lipsynching judgements based on the DVDs because they are always edited. These CDLs and a few other tv concerts she's done are the only real way to tell. I will say, I think it was likely she was lipsynching step you. It is very odd though that she would lip synch that one and not ladies not as well though.

[Kikaru]

^What I don't get is that if she lipsynched Step you, why use a different version than the studio version? STEP you was released close enough that she could just used the studio version...

It could be me, but her 2007 performances when she was promoting A Best 2 seemed fine. And her fated performances weren't bad either. After that everything went downhill...

Weird.

[SunshineSlayer]

Originally Posted by truehappiness

Don't let what UHPlus said get to you. If what he said was true, then his precious Namie Amuro DVDs aren't live either. :|

Namie is one of the very few artists that sounds just as good live if not better than on CD. (especially from 93-97, but even still today she sounds great)

I think the lipsynching debate should go to rest. It's obvious that Ayu has lipsynched before, but the majority of what you hear from her is live. And it seems very likely that she lipsynched Step YOU in this concert.(Going Oh Oh and Yeah in between does not mean it is live) And yes, DVDs are edited so that everything sounds much clearer. Period.

Originally Posted by HilaryDuffFanboy

I do believe Ayu never lip syncs unless she is sick like in CDL 02-03.

But whats funny is that even though she was sick, she didn't lip synch at all in that concert. It seems to be from 2004ish on that she started doing some lipsynching here and there.

Originally Posted by alternarist

why are we arguing about senseless issues? the concert is already over and done with. Hello? its 2008. the concert is in 2007.

UHPlus, if you are here to bash ayu, then why are you in an ayu forum with thousands of posts? instead wasting ur time arguing with others about a singer which u dont even like.

Maybe because they want Ayu to be better? I think UHPLUS went a little overboard, but people also shouldn't get defensive about every single even slightly negative post about Ayu.

[truehappiness]

Originally Posted by salutcben

and truehappinness, you're a so deaf and blind Ayu-fan, that it's funny and stupid in the same time.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaseee.

If I were blind, I wouldn't see anything but perfection, if I were deaf, how the heck would I hear her song? Come up with a better way to insult me later. I find that most people seem to try to find the worst in Ayu, while I am trying to find the best in her. And have been for years. And if that's being blind, then I don't want to see. Her flaws are there in front of me and I love her for them. So what?

And about lipsynching, apparently she lipsynched some TV performances of SEASONS, but... that's another story. No idea what happened there.